Fulfillment is Rain
by RealFunkyTown
Summary: Trying to distract Sam from Jessica's death, Dean lets his brother talk him into a backpacking trip to hunt for the cause of some deadly Bigfoot sightings. The backcountry trip takes a turn for the worse when Sam becomes the next victim.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This story is an extension of my 'Promises' drabble. It takes place early Season 1. Many, many thanks to Leahelisabeth for her fantastic beta work!

* * *

_Southside Diner - Grand Junction, Colorado  
_

Sam had woken him up screaming again. But nothing was wrong. No, everything was just super. His brother was killing himself and his Dad was probably out doing the same. Dean was going to kick both their asses.

It was hard to say what Dad had been thinking taking off without a word, but there was really nothing new there. Dean just had to trust him and roll with the punches. If Dad sent them a case, they'd deal with it. If they came across their own case, they'd deal with that too.

Either way it was the same thing. Just find the monsters and kill them. It was no different than what he and Sam had always done and like always, Dad would call when he was ready. All they had to do was wait and keep busy until then. Easy to say, but it got harder to do every day.

He finished the last of his coffee and glanced across the table towards his exhausted brother. Sam hadn't even eaten half of his breakfast and had to be close to overdosing on caffeine. But everything was just fine.

Dean flipped though the morning paper. He was supposed to be looking for a case, but what he really needed was something to get Sam's mind off the damn nightmares that wouldn't stop haunting his brother. Sam could hardly close his eyes without being bombarded. If his brother thought he was hiding it he needed a serious reality check.

The woman Sam had loved had been torched on a ceiling. It was too much to deal with alone. Dean knew. Sam still wouldn't talk to him about any of it because he thought he wouldn't understand. His little brother didn't get that he was one of the only people in the world that could understand. Dean had already been there.

"Maybe we should head east," Sam suggested. "There's some reports here...sounds like there could be an active vengeful spirit in this bar in Cleveland."

Dean's fork stabbed one of the uneaten sausage links that had been taunting him from Sam's plate. There wasn't anything wrong with going east, but he had a better idea. He barely finished chewing the chunk of sausage in his mouth before replying.

"Or it could be that they're serving alcohol in the bar. I say we head out west."

His brother glared at him over his coffee. "Just to argue or is there actually a reason?"

"A little of both," Dean admitted with a shrug. "Dude, we just salted and burned three corpses. We need a little variety. I'm tired of getting knocked around by spooks. I want to kick some...what's that word of yours...'corporeal' ass for a change."

An amused smirk came to Dean's lips. His pen circled a minor article in the paper before he traded the folded newspaper for Sam's plate. He didn't have to ask to know that his brother had no intention of finishing his breakfast and he couldn't stand by and let perfectly good food go to waste.

"A chupacabra in Reno?" Sam asked disbelievingly as he glanced over the article. "What paper are you reading?"

Dean snatched the under appreciated newspaper back and Sam returned to his computer without further comment. The paper was legit, but the article wasn't. Why couldn't he have a dumber brother? It didn't matter that the chupacabra was a hoax, there was something that needed killing everywhere. Reno had the advantage of also being full of all types of other pleasant distractions.

He honestly didn't know what Sam considered to be fun. As far as he could tell, locking his brother in a library would probably be Sam's idea of a fantasy vacation, but no brother of his was going to get off on textbooks while avoiding the finer things in life.

"A beast terrifying the masses. This is our kind of gig."

"You hate Reno."

"No I don't," Dean replied indignantly.

Sam looked up from his laptop with a raised brow. "I believe last time we left your exact words were 'if we ever head back towards Reno shoot me'."

"Yeah, well, I also convinced you the legal drinking age in Reno was sixteen," Dean replied with a chuckle. "Man, you have to admit that was awesome."

"Yeah...Dad thought that was hilarious," Sam replied with an eye roll.

Dean shrugged. "Okay, maybe it wasn't one of my better ideas. I was a little drunk."

"A little? Dean, you introduced me to the bartender as your girlfriend Samantha."

Dean's chuckle turned to throat clearing. He didn't remember that part, but it wasn't the sort of thing that Sam would make up and the night had been a blur. All right, he had been totally wasted, but it had been a hell of a good time right up until Dad had gotten back from his hunt two days early.

The ending might have been painful, but bringing it up was pulling in Sam's attention just like he had hoped. His brother stopped pointlessly clicking the keys on his computer and really looked at him. Dean could finally see the hints of the smirk Sam was hiding.

"I thought Dad was going to kill you," Sam mused. "Like literally kill you."

"That makes two of us. I think he would have if he hadn't needed me for bait to finish the hunt. I told you hunting saves lives."

Dad had come back early because it turned out that the thing he was hunting had actually been a lot closer than they'd thought. That was one of many reasons Dad had been so pissed. Dad had every reason in the world to tear him a new one.

He'd screwed up, ditched his responsibilities and he could have easily gotten Sam killed. It was the first and last time he'd let himself get sloppy drunk. He couldn't afford to drop his guard like that. Not ever.

When he really thought about it, he couldn't actually remember why it struck him as a good memory. But after a moment, it finally came. It had been one of the only times that he and Sam had just been stupid kids doing pointlessly stupid things.

"You never told me what happened."

Dean made a face. Suddenly he remembered why Reno had really sucked. The hunt hadn't exactly gone as planned and not in a way that he ever planned to admit to his brother.

"Nothing happened. Dad wasted it. Forget Reno."

He could tell that, even through his funk, Sam wanted to push for an explanation, but Dean's glare promised instant death if Sam didn't drop it. Instead of pushing, the worry returned to his brother's eyes, but Dean didn't want that either. Sam's brow furrowed and he again seemed to get lost in thought. Dean opened his mouth to pull his brother back from wherever his mind had gone, but Sam spoke first.

"You really think he's okay?"

There was no question who Sam was talking about. Dean was tired of having this conversation. They had been having it practically since Sam could talk and the answer was always the same.

"He's Dad."

Sam thought he didn't care, that he wasn't going nuts trying to figure out what Dad was up to, but he was. After all, it was him that Dad had ditched. Whatever Dad was on the trail of, he hadn't trusted that Dean could deal with it and considering everyway he had tried to prove himself, that stung like a mother.

He wanted Dad to trust him and he wanted to know that Dad was safe. Hell, he wanted them all to be together as a family again, but he didn't expect that he was going to start getting what he wanted now and he sure wasn't going to sit around and cry about it.

Dad knew what was best and if he didn't want to communicate with them directly there had to be a damn good reason for it. There wasn't a thing to do but suck it up and move on. They had their own work to do now. That was if they could agree on a job.

"Right..." Sam's eyes returned to the computer and Dean returned to his newspaper until Sam spoke again, "Here I got one...how about a series of unexplained deaths in the Hoh Rainforest?"

A wide grin again crossed Dean's lips. He folded the newspaper and tossed it aside. Finally Sam was on the right track.

"The 'Ho Rainforest'? Now you're talking. I knew you'd find me some strippers in need."

His mind was filled with visions of gorgeous, scantily clad women around a bar waving palm fronds and dangling bunches of grapes. Here he'd been thinking Sam was a lost cause, but there was hope for his dopey brother yet.

"It's a national park."

Dean's face fell. "In southern California?" he asked hopefully.

"No strippers, no bikinis," Sam replied with only a mild hint of annoyance.

Dean was obviously going to have to try harder at being a pain in the ass. Sam was being more dense than usual.

"Then what does it have?"

"Bigfoot."

That simple statement was proof positive that his brother needed a vacation. "Yeah, okay. Do you want to stop by the unicorn farm on the way?"

"At least I'm looking for a case instead of a hookup."

"Oh come on. You wanna hunt for Bigfoot and you were giving me crap about a chupacabra? Okay, so there's no chupacabra in Reno, but at least they exist. Every hunter knows Bigfoot is nothing but a hoax."

"I'm not saying it's actually Bigfoot, but it's something. Take a look at these," Sam said as he turned the computer so that Dean could see the screen too.

He tilted his head as his brother clicked through some pictures. Some were the typical blurry photos that could just as easily be a picture of the family dog as anything else, but others were weirdly in focus. Dean couldn't deny that they all looked like pictures of Bigfoot.

On the other hand, while he hadn't seen any of these specific photos before, he'd seen plenty of others like them and they'd all been fakes. Sure, some of these were way better than he'd ever previously seen, but this was Bigfoot they were talking about. Even though the photos looked like they had all been taken with different cameras, the same guy was obviously behind all of them. Any idiot could see that.

"Those all look like the Bigfoot from the Patterson-Gimlin footage."

"I know," Sam replied. "But these were all taken in the last couple of weeks and all by different people."

"So someone found the old suit and is running around the backcountry scaring the tourists. It's funny, but it's not a case."

"It's not just the sightings and it's not just some joke. They have footprints that look legit enough that Fish and Wildlife is investigating and bodies are starting to turn up. These people were ripped apart."

"Hoax and bear attacks," Dean replied dismissively. Still he watched the photos click by until one caught his eye. "Hey, wait, go back to that last one." The photo wasn't of Bigfoot, but of several young women posing for a group shot outside of a ranger station. "Who are they?"

"Some of the witnesses. There are some students from the local university doing research projects in the area."

"I'm in," Dean announced. He shoveled the last of Sam's hash browns into his mouth before popping up out of his chair. "Let's hit the road."

Sam just shook his head, but was convinced enough to pack up his laptop. Dean knew his brother wanted to complain about his motivation. Honestly he was hoping that Sam would. He'd been trying his best lately to goad his brother into distraction, but he must be losing his touch. He was okay with that, just as long as it wasn't the alternative – that he was losing his brother.

Dean wouldn't let that happen. He had already basically lost Dad to the thing that had killed Mom. He wasn't losing Sam too. One way or another he was going to pull his brother out of this rut. This Bigfoot thing was a heaping waste of time, but that didn't matter.

If his brother wanted to take a pseudo case chasing some dude in a monkey suit, Dean would be right there with him, laughing all the way. As a bonus, once this was over, he was going to have the world's biggest 'I told you so' to hold over Sam's head.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam nestled further into the covers as the sun's morning rays warmed his face. He dreaded the thought of waking completely, afraid to lose this moment. With a deep breath he drew in more of Jessica's sweet scent. Her soft hair brushed against his cheek while her head nuzzled into the crook of his shoulder. Lazily, he slipped his arm around her, pulling her further into his embrace, sighing contentedly.

"You gonna sleep all day, Sammy?"

He raised his brow questioningly. She had never called him Sammy before. When his eyes opened to meet hers, he forgot about everything else. She could call him whatever she wanted. Everything about her was pure perfection.

Jessica pulled back just enough so that she could draw his lips to hers. He moaned softly in protest when she broke off the kiss. His hand reached out to pull her back, but he startled bolt upright when he heard shouting.

"Hey, Scully, wake up!"

A hard shove to his shoulder jolted him the rest of the way back to reality.

"Dude, come on! You are so not getting a happy on in my car," Dean hissed at him. "Especially not with me in it!"

"What?" Sam looked around disoriented. In an instant all the familiar feelings of emptiness and loss came rushing back in all the stronger. He pushed them down and tried to shake the cobwebs from his head. "Oh...sorry."

"Whatever. Just let me know if you need me to pull over."

Sam glared at Dean, but his expression turned confused when he saw that his brother had a barely concealed smile on his lips. Dean looked more relaxed than Sam had seen him for a while. Suddenly Sam realized that his brother wasn't actually annoyed at all.

He liked to pretend that he was hiding the nightmares from Dean, but he knew he wasn't. This wasn't the first time Dean had woken him up just on the way out here. The first time it had been ragged concern, not a smirk, that had been poorly hidden on his brother's face.

"Yeah...uh thanks, but I'm okay." Sam glanced back to Dean who just shrugged without taking his eyes from the road, the corner of his lips still upturned. "And you're Scully."

"Seriously? Have you ever looked in the mirror? Dude, you so got Scully hair."

Sam just scoffed at him. "Whatever."

With a deep sigh, he settled back down in his seat. Even when he didn't avoid sleeping, he still felt like he wasn't actually getting any rest. If anything he was just more exhausted when he woke up.

"Uh huh. But, you seriously gotta wake up because I think I took a wrong turn."

Stretching in his seat, Sam blinked the last of the sleep from his eyes and for the first time, looked out the window at the passing forest. It took him a moment to remember where they were even going. When he did, he furrowed his brows and shot Dean a look.

"How could you take a wrong turn? There are no turns."

"It's a figure of speech, dude. Obviously I missed something 'cause the edge of civilization is like a hundred miles behind us."

"Where are we?" Sam looked for any distinguishing road signs, but there weren't any. The map wasn't exactly going to help.

"Where's it look like? We're on the endless highway in the middle of freakin' nowhere."

Suddenly Sam sat forward in the seat and pointed to the right. "Right there. Up ahead."

"Okay..." A skeptical look came to Dean's face as he pulled into the small, unpaved parking lot and gave a critical look to the building in front of them. "I give. What is it? The world's tiniest motel?"

"It's a general store," Sam replied with a roll of his eyes. "We're just grabbing some supplies and then we can head over to the campground for the night."

Dean cut the engine and slowly turned towards Sam. The utterly perplexed expression on his brother's face made Sam wonder if he was even speaking English.

"Come again?" Dean finally asked. "When the hell were you gonna tell me there's no motel here?"

"I thought we could camp."

"And I thought you were my brother."

"Dean, what's the problem?"

"I don't camp."

"Since when?"

"Since...ever."

"I thought you just didn't like camping with Wendigos."

"News flash, Sammy - no one likes camping with Wendigos! But Wendigos or no Wendigos, I don't camp. Not on purpose."

Sam didn't care about Bigfoot, or whatever this really was. He wasn't even all that interested in hunting for anything aside from Dad's trail. But the thing was, Dean was right about a few things.

They had no leads on Dad and no idea where to look. Dad was a master at hiding his trail, even from them. They wouldn't be able to find him until he wanted to be found. Dean could go around preaching his Dad knows best crap all he wanted, but Sam could see straight through his act.

Dean needed a break as much as he did and this case was off the wall enough to distract even his brother. What Sam just hadn't realized, was that his brother was apparently allergic to camping and he had no clue why.

"Have you ever even camped? I mean, beside the Wendigo?"

"That wasn't camping and, yeah, I have and so have you. It's something you do when you've got nowhere else to go. Dad always worked his ass off to make sure we had a roof over our head and what kind of moron pays to sleep on the ground in the woods anyway?"

Sam didn't even know what to say to that. He didn't remember whatever Dean was referring to and he was sure that Dean wouldn't elaborate if he asked. Bringing up Dad anymore wasn't going to help either of them anyway.

"This thing is attacking backcountry campers," Sam finally replied. "The only way we're going to learn anything is by talking to the campers."

"I got no problem talking to campers or spending all day in the woods – it's just the camping part of camping I got a problem with."

"Uh...okay, but it's too far to drive back and forth between the closest lodge."

"Looks like it's Bigfoot's lucky day."

"You want to drop the case, Dean?"

"It's not a case. Dude, it's Bigfoot! I thought it would be good for a laugh, but it's not funny anymore."

But Sam knew Dean hadn't come for Bigfoot at all. He raised his brows a bit and nodded behind Dean. His brother narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but shot a glance over his shoulder and then turned in his seat so he could look some more.

Finally Dean shot a look back to Sam after the girls had disappeared into the general store. "Only if they're staying at the campground."

Without another word, Dean got out of the car. Sam just silently smirked as he followed his brother up the creaky wooden front steps and into the store. It was a cozy place crowded with a little bit of everything from tourist junk to hardcore survival gear.

Once they were inside, his brother immediately left his side and was soon discussing bug sprays with some girls. Sam had to admit that no one had ever used bug spray like his brother had, but he was pretty sure that Dean had never used the stuff for anything other than keeping literal swarms of insects at bay.

He kept half an ear to the totally lame conversation just so he'd know what story Dean was feeding the girls and how he was going to have to play along. Apparently they were with Fish and Wildlife this time around.

A few minutes later Dean was back at his side, grinning like an idiot. "So I was talking to Heather and Mindy and...what is that crap?"

"Trail mix and granola." Sam turned around to look at Dean whose arms were already full. "You're getting candy and beer? And bug spray.... Dean, we could be out there for days."

"That's why I'm stocking up. Besides, we're not going to be out there that long. We don't even have a tent and it'll only take me a couple of hours to prove that you're an idiot. These are for the road," he added as he reached pass Sam and added a bag of Funyuns to his armload.

"I got a tent."

Sam motioned toward the orange vinyl bag containing the cheap two person tent he'd found collecting dust in the back of the store. Once again, Dean's eyes narrowed.

"We don't need a tent."

"This place is actually a rainforest. You really want to sleep under the stars?"

"I wanna sleep in a bed, but I'll settle for my car."

"The sites in the area of the attacks are walk in."

"What does that even mean?"

"What's it sound like?"

"Man, come on," Dean grumbled. "I'm not going in without my car."

"Just remember the girls."

"Shut up...and grab me another bag of marshmallows."

----

_Ho Rain Forest __–__ Olympic National Park - Washington_

Dean had reluctantly left his baby parked at the trailhead and then they'd made the short hike into the group of campsites. It was a short enough walk that they could head on back to the car to sleep so he wasn't sure why Sam was obsessed with sleeping at the campsite. Sure the attacks were happening at the sites, not in the parking lot, but he was sure they could hear the screaming from the lot.

At this point he didn't care what his brother was thinking, because Sam was getting way too much amusement out of this whole thing. Dean had to struggle to remind himself that was the whole reason he'd come out here while Sam was laughing at him.

"Does this site have a better 'tactical advantage'?" Sam asked mockingly.

"Laugh it up," Dean shot back. "You'll be thanking me when you're still alive tomorrow morning. That last site was totally indefensible."

"'Indefensible'..." Sam's amused face turned serious as his brother really looked at him. "You really did go camping with Dad, didn't you?"

Not wanting to touch it, Dean ignored his brother and paced Sam's newest site selection. Giving in, he walked over to perch on top of the mossy picnic table. He dropped his duffel bag to the ground and took a deep breath of the clean, fresh air.

Aside from the occasional voice in the distance, there were only the flow of the nearby river and the evening songs of birds in the trees. It was peaceful. Dean was suddenly hit with the reason Sam was so stuck on this. This was normal.

"This one doesn't suck any more than the rest," Dean finally acquiesced.

"You have to admit it's beautiful," Sam told him.

His brother took a seat on the picnic table's bench beside Dean's boots and reached up to hand him a beer. Dean accepted the peace offering and shrugged while looking out into the dense, moss draped forest.

"Right until something jumps out and bites you in the ass."

"That happens to us wherever we go."

"Why tempt fate?"

"It's kind of what we do."

"Yeah, okay," Dean replied after a gulp of beer. "But remind me what exactly we're doing here besides getting ready to freeze our asses off in a tent that you're setting up by yourself?"

With a jacket, it wasn't all that cold now, but the cloud filtered sun had already dipped behind the large trees. The slight nip in the early spring air promised that it was going to get chilly fast. And pitch dark.

It wasn't like Dean was afraid of the dark, not by a long shot, but he knew what was out there. Bigfoot wasn't mauling campers, but something was and they had to be ready for it. He hadn't gone along with this stupid hunt just to let his little brother get torn to shreds.

"For now we're just staking out the area," Sam replied. "Assuming there aren't any attacks tonight, we'll start interviewing people tomorrow and see what evidence we can find."

"Wouldn't the evidence be back in civilization at the coroner's office?"

"I read all the coroner's reports online."

"Yeah, about that, can you even go a day without logging into that thing?"

"My computer? Uh yeah, as much as you can go a day without caressing that stupid car."

Luckily for Sam, by the time the words had finished leaving his mouth he had left the picnic table to start screwing around with the tent. Dean slid down onto the bench seat and leaned back, getting ready for a show while he glared daggers at Sam's back.

"What I said about you living to see tomorrow...I lied. Don't you ever talk crap about my baby."

"I just don't think it's healthy to be that obsessed with steel on wheels."

"Dude, it's the American dream."

Sam looked up from his futile start at tent construction to raise a brow at him. "Dean, nothing about our lives fits the American dream."

"Sure it does...are you building a tent or a boat?" Dean asked as he tilted his head at the odd shaped frame Sam had half constructed.

"They didn't have the box anymore…there's no picture. I have no clue what this thing is supposed to look like."

Dean just snickered as his academic whiz of a brother stared dumbly at the unpacked pieces of the tent. After a few minutes, Sam looked ready to take a shotgun to the thing.

"You could help," Sam pointed out with a grumble.

"I could, but then it wouldn't be half as funny," Dean replied as he knocked back another swig of beer. But Sam looked at him half annoyed, half helpless. "Oh come on, if you're gonna freakin' pout about it..."

Finally Dean shoved off the picnic table and joined Sam's side, but only because it was going to actually get dark before Sam managed to stick the A-slot into the B-slot.

"Dude, it's totally upside down," Dean told him.

He took out the wrongly placed pieces and started switching them around while Sam glared at him. Dean did his best not to laugh at his brother's sour, indignant look.

"You couldn't have mentioned that you knew how it went together earlier?"

"Nah. There's no television. Someone's gotta entertain me. Help me pull the rain cover on."

When they were finished Dean stepped back, crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at the micro-tent. A displeased looked crossed his face as he looked over to his brother who was also standing beside him contemplating the sorry excuse for sleeping quarters.

"Can we go sleep in the car now?" Dean asked.

For a moment he was hopeful that his brother would have come to his senses, but Sam's expression was stubbornly set.

"No."

"Fine. But if you get all with the happy moans again I'm gonna feed you to Bigfoot."

"Ditto."

"Whatever. So do we get to roast some marshmallows or what?"


	3. Chapter 3

Sam had risen long before the sun had tried and failed to fight its way through the thick, grey clouds. The heavily filtered morning light wasn't even enough to dissolve the fog that hung around the tops of the massive trees. It wasn't raining but it looked like it could start at any moment. He pulled the collar of his jacket tighter around his neck.

Rain or no rain, everything was damp just from the humidity that saturated the air. His jeans, his hair, and even the tent that his brother was still sprawled out inside of, just felt wet. At least it was something different. The weird sensation of feeling so moist without actually being wet was just one more thing to help pull his focus from the reason he had gotten up so early.

It was one thing to hide nightmares from Dean when his relatively deep sleeping brother was a bed over or when there was the distractions of the road and the rumbling of the Impala's engine to cover up subtle noises. It was a completely different thing when Dean was lying less than a foot away. Here there was just the breeze, the quiet babbling of water running over rocks in the nearby stream and the occasional sounds of wildlife. There were campers not far off that were probably already on edge without listening to him call out in the darkness.

His brother hadn't noticed him leaving the tent, at least not consciously. Dean had mumbled some drowsy comment about making sure the fire was out, but his eyes had never opened. It was probably a good thing considering that he had seen Dean hide a knife under his makeshift pillow and leave a gun tucked at his side. The more time he spent around his brother the more skeptical he was that Dean was really as at ease about this lifestyle as he claimed to be.

Sam had settled down on the picnic table to quietly contemplate everything. The problem was that he couldn't decide whether he was trying to forget or trying to remember. Looking at the stunning wilderness surrounding him in the still morning it was hard to not think about how much Jess would have loved it, not the camping, but a day hike.

He was pulled from his thoughts of the imaginary day that would never be when he heard a rustling. Soon after there was cursing coming from inside the tent, followed by grumbling as Dean unzipped the tent's door and crawled out. Sam just caught the concern in Dean's still sleepy eyes before his brother saw him. Apparently appeased that Sam was alive, Dean went on to griping.

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," Dean started in. His brother stiffly stood up, stretching his arms over his head before running a hand over his rumpled hair. "Two person tent my ass. A man should never have to sleep that close to his brother."

"At least you didn't have to bend your knees or have someone kicking you in the ribs all night," Sam countered with a shake of his head.

"Don't you even try to put this on me - this was your stupid ass plan and for the record, I did have to smell you."

"You're a little ripe yourself there, Dean."

"No problem. I'll just go take a shower...oh wait. There's no freakin' running water!"

Sam rolled his eyes. He knew Dean couldn't care less about running water and was just looking for something to complain about. "And you always said I was the girl. Go jump in the river."

"You go jump in the river. Speaking of girls, why didn't I get to share a tent with one?"

"Because you really do reek…there are bathrooms here," Sam added as he saw Dean stalk off behind a tree.

"Those aren't bathrooms. I'm not gonna hike to use some damn hole in the ground when there's a perfectly nice tree right here," Dean called back. "Go find me some coffee."

"There is no coffee, Dean."

A moment later his brother reappeared with an even more disgruntled look plastered over his face. "That other campground down the road had motorhomes."

"Uh...yeah, so?"

"So let's go interview them," Dean replied as he reached into the tent and grabbed his jacket.

"So you can get free coffee?"

"And breakfast."

"There haven't been any attacks in that area. We're not going to raid the motorhome of some poor camper that wouldn't even know anything about the case."

"Screw the case. I want breakfast."

"We brought breakfast," Sam reminded him as he pulled the granola from his bag. Dean just made a disgusted face at it.

"That's not even food. I'd take military rations over that flake shaped cardboard."

"We don't have any rations because you bought candy."

"Damn straight. I ain't sharing either and you can get your own beer."

Defiantly Dean reached back into the tent, rooted around in his bag and came back with a bag of candy bars and a bottle of beer. He stomped over and settled down on top of the opposite side of the picnic table facing away from him.

Sam wasn't sure how many candy bars Dean had gone through before his brother looked over his shoulder at him, but he was pretty sure that Dean had already finished the beer.

"So is my BO why you snuck out of the tent at the butt crack of midnight?"

Sam sighed. He thought he was going to be able to avoid this conversation. "We didn't go to bed until after midnight and I didn't get up until morning."

"It's barely morning now," Dean yawned.

Sam glanced at his watch. "It's 8:30."

"My point exactly. So what do you say we..."

Dean fell silent at the sound of approaching footsteps. Sam gave a barely perceptible nod as his brother shot him a look for confirmation. Someone was approaching their site. He nudged Dean with a glare and a shake of his head when he saw his brother reaching behind his back for his gun.

Their site might be off from the rest, but that didn't mean some hiker wasn't going to wander over here. He saw his brother's tensed shoulders relax when an aging park ranger came into view. The man gave them a warm smile and a wave as he approached.

"Good morning, boys," the old man greeted them.

"Morning, ranger," Dean replied casually as he hoped off the table, no sign that a moment ago he had been ready to open fire.

"Are you boys planning on heading out further into the backcountry?"

"Yes, sir. Is there a problem?"

"I just wanted to make sure you were aware that there have been some attacks in this area of the park. We're asking everyone to stay alert and take proper precautions."

"Precautions against what exactly?" Sam asked.

"Why bears of course."

Dean nodded. "That's what's been killing the campers then?"

"So you've heard? It's tragic for everyone involved. Bear attacks are rare, but we may have an aggressive rogue in the area."

"Were the deaths consistent with bear attacks?" Sam asked, ignoring Dean's look that said his brother agreed with the ranger.

"It's hard to say really, other animals tend to move in after a kill and it takes a while to find anyone out here. Our best guess is that we have a grizzly in the area."

"I thought there weren't any records of grizzlies here."

"There aren't that we know of but there's a lot of isolated terrain out here and very few people. This is a true wilderness and the truth is that there could be just about anything living out in those mountains. It just a little strange..."

Sam raised a brow at the tone of the ranger's voice. "What's that?"

"Lately we've been finding wolf tracks too. Of course we realize not everyone keeps to the rules of not bringing their dogs out on the trails, but the tracks are a dead match for timber wolf. It's just odd."

"There haven't been any wolves in the area since the 1920s, right?" Sam asked.

"Exactly. Are you one of the biology students?"

"Nah he's just an over educated freak," Dean replied for him.

"How long you two planning on staying out?"

"We're just on a short hunt," Dean assured the man. Sam subtly drove his elbow into Dean's rib, earning him a confused glare from his brother.

"You boys do realize there's no hunting allowed within the park boundaries?" the ranger asked politely.

Dean glanced to Sam and gave an innocent shrug. Of course Dean hadn't actually bothered to listen to anything Sam had told him about the park.

"Yeah...of course," Dean said. "We're just hunting for Bigfoot."

"Ah, I see. You're more of them."

"More of who?" Sam asked before he had a chance to smack Dean.

"We've been inundated with Bigfoot hunters ever since the reports started coming in."

"So there have been a lot of sighting in the area?"

"Some people think so. Boys, there's a lot of things in these forests, but all my life I've lived here and I can tell you the one thing that isn't out here is Bigfoot. Believe me, I've looked. Between you and me, I was drunker than a skunk and on a bet, but I looked for days and know plenty of other poor fools who have wasted their entire lives searching sober. You aren't going to find any undiscovered primates on these lands."

Dean shot a smug look to Sam. "Some guys just can't listen to reason."

-o-o-o-

A morning of interviewing campers had gotten Dean a cup of coffee, a couple of fried eggs and a few phone numbers. All in all, not bad, but they'd come up with a heaping butt load of nothing as far as information on this supposed hunt. That wasn't exactly a shock.

They had gotten everything from people telling them that they were total whackos to telling them that Bigfoot was an alien in disguise. Sam had just managed to pull him out before the burly man had taken serious offense to Dean's questioning of what kind of dumb ass alien would choose a giant ape as a cover ID.

Sam had wanted to pack up the tent and head out into the backcountry to check on some of the backpackers. Dean had just wanted to hit the road. They'd compromised, sort of, more like Dean had lost three rounds of rock, paper, scissors and then bitched about it until Sam had caved and agreed to just make it a day hike. It would be just long enough to finally prove that Sam was still as gullible as they came.

"This is a national park, Dean, you think you could maybe keep your candy wrappers in your pocket?"

"Okay, Ranger Rick…"

Dean wasn't sure if Sam was just pissed about not getting his way or if the lack of sleep was finally catching up with his brother. Either way Sam was in a seriously foul mood and Dean was half tempted to give Sam the fight he was looking for.

He turned around to glare at his brother who was wearing a chastising face that Dad would have been proud of while waving around a stupid Snickers wrapper. No way in hell all that impatience was about some damn candy wrapper. Dean snatched it back and made a show of burying it deep in his jacket pocket.

"Can we talk about this now?" Dean asked a moment later, turning around to fully face his brother. "And if you say 'about what', so help me Sammy, I'm gonna slug you."

"It's _Sam_ and there's nothing to talk about, Dean. I'm..."

"'Fine' is also a slugging offense," Dean warned.

"So says the king of fine."

"Yeah, whatever, just means I know what kind of crap qualifies for fine," Dean replied around a mouthful of chocolate. "You don't think I can't see what's happening?"

"Nothing's happening and don't you think you've had enough?" Sam asked with a nod towards the candy bar. "You've basically had nothing but sugar and beer since we got out here yesterday."

"So? It's not my fault there aren't any diners out here."

"Is this how you ate while I was gone?"

"This is how I've eaten since..." The words 'since Mom died' were on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed them down. "Nothing's changed." Nothing had changed except for everything. It didn't matter. Dean was going to put this sorry family back together if it was the last thing he did. "All that studying and lettuce just rotted your brain. You know, maybe if you'd stuck around you could have taught me the value of a balanced diet."

"I'm sorry," Sam said out of the blue.

"Oh don't start that," Dean growled as he turned his back and started walking again.

"Start what?"

"You know what. Apologizing for crap that you're not even sorry for."

"Dean, I really am sorry."

"Yeah, I know. You're sorry Jess died, which wasn't your damn fault, and you're sorry Dad's missing, which also isn't your fault."

"So what's the problem?"

"Nothing...everything. I don't know. I'm just worried about you, man. Like why the hell are we even out here?" Sam just stared at him. "What?"

"What do you want me to be sorry for?"

"I don't want you to be sorry for anything that you're sorry for because none of it was your fault, that's the whole damn point!"

"You're still mad I left at all."

"I'm not mad. I'm not," Dean insisted at Sam's disbelieving look. "Just drop it."

"I needed to get away from Dad, but it wasn't about you, Dean."

"Wow. That just...well, you got your wish. Dad's a non-issue."

"I never wanted this."

"Forget it."

"Dean..."

"I said forget it. Seriously."

"Okay," Sam sighed. "We're at the trail fork. I think the last attack was around this area."

"Great, so we're looking for some giant...what the hell?"

"What?"

Dean's steps came to a sudden halt and he nodded to a set of large, recently made tracks that were deeply embedded in the mud at the side of the trail. His brother kneeled down and examined them before looking back up at him.

"Dean, these are real."

"Did you forget everything we learned while you were away? They don't even look real."

"Look at the weight distribution pattern at the..." Sam began as if he was going to do a full lecture on footprint analysis. Dean cut him off before his brother could get warmed up.

"See, that's just what I mean. You learned all this stuff that's just a bunch of crap. It all makes sense in a book but out here in the real world you try following those theories and you end up running after imaginary monsters. Dad taught us everything we needed to know about tracking. Rule number one, if you find a Bigfoot print – it's freakin' bogus! If we follow these tracks were gonna end up in some kid's tent."

"Only one way to find out."

"Dude, this is nuts...you get that we're wandering around the woods looking for Bigfoot, right? Sam?" he called after his brother.

"Let's just see where these go."

"Man, I don't believe this! You're gonna owe me so much pie," Dean grumbled as he followed after Sam.

They didn't make it much further through the dense forest before the sound of someone else pushing through the brush hit Dean's ears. His hand shot up, indicating for Sam to stop where he was. They stood frozen as Dean listened, finally pointing in the direction that he'd heard the cracking limbs.

Sam nodded and followed closely behind him as they moved towards a clearing. Finally he was going to be able to prove to Sam that this was all just some practical joke. When he hit the forest edge, Dean jerked to a stop, his jaw gaping in disbelief.

"Holy crap."

"What?" Sam whispered anxiously as he came up behind Dean.

Bigfoot was kneeling beside the stream drinking. It wasn't some dude in a monkey suit knocking back a beer. It was an honest to god thing lapping up water like some damn gorilla. Dean stared dumbfounded for another half a second before silently pulling out his gun, switching off the safety and leveling the pistol at the target.

He'd seen enough, but just as his finger was about to squeeze around the trigger, a hand reached around from behind him and grabbed his wrist. Dean instinctively swung around, ready to take on the new target only to realize that it was his stupid little brother.

"What the hell?" Dean hissed at him. "Don't you _ever_ grab my gun. You pull crap like that and I'm gonna end up shooting you."

"Just wait," Sam urged him.

With a frustrated sigh Dean glared at his brother who had officially just lost his mind. "Wait for what? I got a clear shot."

"We don't know what it is."

"Yeah, we do. Sam, it's Bigfoot."

"I know, I mean...this could just be an endangered species."

"Seriously? What are you freakin' Jane Goodall now? Dude, it's a monster!" Dean whispered harshly to his insane brother.

"It could be defending its territory."

"Oh hell, in that case let's let it eat all the campers it wants."

"We don't even know if this is what's killing them. Remember the wolf prints? You're the one that said it couldn't be Bigfoot."

"That was before I was staring at him! Sightings, tracks and...oh monster. I think it's pretty damn straight forward. We're hunters, making monsters endangered species, it's pretty much what we do."

The argument came to a quick end when the massive thing at the stream's edge suddenly reared up to its full height. The sheer size and ease of movement only confirmed that there was no way this was a human in a costume. Even from where they hunkered down in the brush Dean could see the bulging muscles rippling beneath the shaggy fur.

"Damn, it's even taller than you, Sasquatch," Dean told Sam who just glared at him. "Can I shoot it now?"

His last words must have been spoken too loudly or by the twitching of the beast's flared nostrils, he and Sam had just gotten stupid and approached from upwind. The thing swung its head, its eyes honing in on them from beneath its massive brow.

It let loose a rumbling growl that showed off every one of its large canines. Bigfoot obviously wasn't a vegetarian and it looked like the thing planned on putting Sam and him on the menu. The thing beat its chest in a perfect rendition of King Kong before it charged towards them.


End file.
